Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion

[Cappuccino]

I look at it objectively, so it's very good in the open world genre. Due to its volume, it has more undeveloped parts, and there are also very good-looking ones. In comparison, HB2 is just a few hours of action game. Starfield is a monumental game of many hundreds of hours with extremely complex game mechanics. It makes no sense to expect the same graphical effect from such a grandiose title as from a simple cinematic game with the most detailed graphics. It's that simple.

The yearly Assassins Creed slop release is a gigantic open world game and they all look 10x better than Starfield. AC Odyssey is like what 7 years old now and looks better than Starfield.

“Extremely complex game mechanics” like what? Shooting at people and filling out skill trees? Nothing in Starfield wasn’t already done in Skyrim (and in some cases Fallout New Vegas, which actually has deeper character interactions all these years later!).

 

[QPlayer]

The lighting and shadows are the exact same as we’ve seen in previous Creation Engine titles.

This is not true. Starfield has much nicer light and shadow effects, a generational leap compared to Fallout.

If you haven't seen this, that's your problem, but it's pointless to set up something you have no idea about.

There were also separate technical blogs about how complex their shading technique was. And indeed, for example, as we get out of the spaceship on a frozen icy moon and as the sun illuminates the terrain and our character generates shadow effects like ray-traces. Spectacular! The global lighting is also categories above their previous games.

I played with it last fall, and now that I revived it like this, oh I'm in the mood for it. I'll go and check out the newer mods!

 

[Cappuccino]

sun illuminates the terrain and our character generates shadow effects like ray-traces.

Are you seriously suggesting shadows are a new feature never before seen?

Just to illustrate:

https://preview.redd.it/now-this-is-starefield-v0-lpxc3f0zqwob1.png?auto=webp&s=5035612508eac15c30736f29b210045cd7c89b79

You’re saying *this* is one of the graphically best games of this gen?

 

[QPlayer]

Oh, this game looks so good:

https://forum.beyond3d.com/attachments/photostudio_1718927587025-jpg.11519/

https://forum.beyond3d.com/attachments/photostudio_1718927541600-jpg.11521/

https://forum.beyond3d.com/attachments/photostudio_1718927570672-jpg.11520/

 

[mr magoo]

Dude you are arguing with guy who thinks FO4 looks better than starfield and completely ignores technical skills of studios who are one the most respected in the industry when it comes to 3D graphics (TC). Let it go. It’s like saying Sony Santa Monica studio is washed out becouse in 24 years the Lu produced only God of war. Dude. Kudos should go where the kudos belong. Jesus.

 

[Cappuccino]

Oh, this game looks so good:

https://forum.beyond3d.com/attachments/photostudio_1718927587025-jpg.11519/

https://forum.beyond3d.com/attachments/photostudio_1718927541600-jpg.11521/

https://forum.beyond3d.com/attachments/photostudio_1718927570672-jpg.11520/

Never of these look current gen lol.

Dude you are arguing with guy who thinks FO4 looks better than starfield and completely ignores technical skills of studios who are one the most respected in the industry when it comes to 3D graphics (TC). Let it go. It’s like saying Sony Santa Monica studio is washed out becouse in 24 years the Lu produced only God of war. Dude. Kudos should go where the kudos belong. Jesus.

One can say a lot about Bethesda but absolutely nobody is applauding their technical skills. Their games were always fairly low tech, their strength was world building.

Who is TC? Which studio is this an acronym for?

It’s like saying Sony Santa Monica studio is washed out becouse in 24 years the Lu produced only God of war.

Santa Monica came out with Ragnarok like 3 years ago, meanwhile Bethesda hasn’t made a good game since Skyrim lol.

 

[Charlietus]

Starfield looks "ok". It has some very high poly assets in spots, and the lighting is alright for a open world with a day-night cycle. But it wouldn't make the top 20 of this generation so far if we consider graphics.

 

[Cappuccino]

RDR2 is open world and runs on a base Xbox One and looks 16x better than Starfield lol.

 

[Charlietus]

RDR2 is open world and runs on a base Xbox One and looks 16x better than Starfield lol.

16 TIMES THE DETAIL

 

[Cappuccino]

16 TIMES THE DETAIL

Yeah that’s the bit I was invoking lol.

The facial animation on god damned half life 2 are better than the facial animations Starfield has.

 

[Cyan]

lol it's a tough industry to be in. I mean, if we had the formula to produce these 'system sellers' they would be using them all the time. The reality is that, no one cares about system sellers as much as before because live service games are now considered the 'system sellers' and they are on every platform.

And the worst part is, they're all free.

yup, I don't blame MS for wanting to take that route of releasing games everywhere. People nowadays are less and less tied to a platform, and even those on the PC can have several PCs soooo different between them but still can play certain games on all of them. People just want to play with their friends, even if they are in different platforms, locally or online, and the socializing part of talking to your friends about the games you play is important too.

 

[Cyan]

16 TIMES THE DETAIL

this reminds me of current generation consoles, 16 times less powerful than a nVidia 5090, at such ridiculous prices

 

[BRiT]

This thread has gone off the rails and is no longer about the actual business direction. It seems some are instead using it as their own personal airing of grievances.

Time to move along or be removed.

 

[Cyan]

good to see you back, Brit!

Now that we mention MS business direction, Isn't today the day when a representative from Microsoft was going to talk about the new business direction they are going to take and the hybrid consoles from Lenovo and so on?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Microsoft says handheld gaming PC should bring "the best of Xbox and Windows together"

The future of Microsoft's handheld gaming plans includes a marriage between the best of Xbox and Windows.

www.eurogamer.net

The future of Microsoft's handheld gaming plans includes a marriage between the best of Xbox and Windows.

That's according to Microsoft's Xbox hardware veteran Jason Ronald, who also teased that the company would have "a lot more to share later this year" on what exactly its Windows-powered handheld vision might look like.

"We've been really innovating for a long time in the console space," Ronald told The Verge during an interview this week at CES 2025, "and as we partner across the industry it's really about how do we bring those innovations that we've incubated and developed in the console space and bring them to PC and bring them to the handheld gaming space."

Ironically there's more discussion about handheld PCs in the Switch 2 thread!

 

[cheapchips]

The Verge article leads with the Xbox handheld still be years away, so the contact of Jason's "more to share later this year" is only about the experience on Windows handhelds. But that blends into what they're doing with the Xbox handheld. It's confusing. As it should be for any Microsoft marketing!

 

[Cyan]

Microsoft says handheld gaming PC should bring "the best of Xbox and Windows together"

The future of Microsoft's handheld gaming plans includes a marriage between the best of Xbox and Windows.

www.eurogamer.net

Ironically there's more discussion about handheld PCs in the Switch 2 thread!

looks like Microsoft are getting nervous with the rise of SteamOS, and it's obvious why.

Kinda off-topic but the fact that clicking on a link on Eurogamer.net makes you leave the current Eurogamer webpage you are reading isn't a good idea. I opened the link to the Verge article within the Eurogamer's article and I had to come back to continue reading.

 

[Cyan]

“I think, at the end of the day, our goal is to make Windows great for gaming on any device,” says Ronald. “The reality is the Xbox operating system is built on top of Windows. So there’s a lot of infrastructure that we built in the console space that we can bring to the PC space and really deliver that premium gaming experience on any device.”

They want to slow down the advance of SteamOS that could jeopardize Windows' position as a platform for games and multimedia.
A lightweight Windows, optimized for gaming, is what was missing so that people no longer have a reason to install SteamOS.